Additive manufacturing technology enables computer designs, such as computer-aided design (CAD) files, to be fabricated into three dimensional (3D) objects. Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, typically comprises depositing, curing, fusing, or otherwise forming a material into sequential cross-sectional layers of the 3D object. The fabrication of a 3D object is achieved using additive processes. Thus, an object is created by laying down successive layers of material until the entire object is created. Each of these layers can be seen as a thinly sliced horizontal cross-section of the eventual object.
In a 3D printer, a nozzle deposits printing material on a build platform to fabricate 3D objects. In a conventional 3D printer, the 3D objects to be printed are described by a stereo lithography (STL) file that describes the 3D object in terms of a group of tessellated triangles in three-dimensional space. The object is prepared for printing by decomposing the STL file into a collection of two-dimensional (2D) horizontal slices with characteristic dimensions that depend upon the particular mechanism to be used to print the layers that form the 3D object. One print mechanism characteristic that is of importance in the slicing operation is the width of the material that will be deposited during the print process. When the 3D object has a wall thickness that is thin with respect to the material deposition width, the slicing operation will frequently produce printing paths that result in non-solid walls that are structurally weak and lack sufficient rigidity to support the finished 3D object.